Submitting on the Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill.

This is my life now, just writing submissions

At 11:59pm today, Thursday 9 January 2025, submissions close on another rather boring sounding Bill - the Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill. More colloquially, people have been calling it the ‘boot camp bill’ as it gives Oranga Tamariki legislative powers to enact ‘military style academies’ for young persons.

On the surface the legalese seems fairly above board. However, the proposed Bill fails to address any of the drivers of offending, does not give the best possible chance for long-term support and rehabilitation, does not effectively address recidivism, and moves towards a more punitive approach for youth. This disproportionately affects Māori and those living with disability.

Accessing support from our disability, mental health, and social sector systems can be Kafkaesque, unkind, and frustrating. This results in families being alienated or disengaging from the process entirely. This failure in our health and social services makes it challenging for families to access the types of intervention and practical supports needed when their young person displays difficult behaviours. Undiagnosed disabilities and culturally uniformed services compound this challenge.

The Abuse in Care Report has clear recommendations regarding the elimination of military style academies and the elimination of acceptable use of reasonable physical force. Any legislation that seeks to create the conditions for abuse, including this current Bill, should be avoided.

Young people most in need of support often exhibit extremely challenging behaviours. The solution is not military style academies or declaring them serious youth offenders. The solution is adequately funding families and whānau and ensuring access to needed disability supports and specialist services.

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The intersections of disability and behaviour

Without diagnosis and subsequent support, the cognitive fatigue and challenging behaviours associated with unmet disability-related need can be misinterpreted and misread as ‘behavioural’ issues.

International research tells us that vision impairments in young people can result in higher incidences of maladaptive behaviours; self-injurious, aggressive and/or destructive behaviours occur more frequently the more severe the visual impairment¹. Young people with a visual impairment are at a higher risk of²:

• experiencing social exclusion and violence in schools (Gur & Albayrak, 2017; Soleimani-Sefat et al., 2016)

• negative attitude toward others, violence and bullying, sexual assault, and loneliness (Brunes et al., 2018; McDonnall & Antonelli, 2018)

• experiencing emotional and behavioral problems (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1983)

• lower scores in psychosocial functioning (Wong et al., 2009)

• higher scores in different psychopathological symptoms (Garaigordobil & Bernaras, 2009)

• depression and lower self-esteem (Lifshitz et al., 2007)

Where young people are their families receive timely, appropriate support, the above types of negative outcomes are avoided³.

when a young person receives timely, appropriate support, this enables pro-social participation in society

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the underdiagnosis of visual impairments in young people means outwardly harmful behaviours are more likely to be misread, with the young person ending up in the youth justice system rather than being able to access the needed specialist ophthalmologist assessments and provision of services.

Accessing publicly-funded ophthalmology services in Aotearoa can be challenging due to our geographic spread, the location of said services in urban centres, and not enough specialists to meet the needs of our population. Transport and travel are a major barrier when accessing hospital-based ophthalmology services, and hospitals have historically been alien and inhospitable environments for whānau⁴. On top of this, health-related services have a poor track record of following up Māori children and ensuring they are receiving the vision-related services they need⁵.

As well as vision-related challenges, young persons with autism (ASD), and/or intellectual disability (ID), and/or foetal alcohol syndrome (FASD) can face barriers in accessing appropriate diagnoses and supports. A lack of appropriate support and early intervention for families results in escalations of behaviour such as self-injury, aggression and property destruction⁶. This unmet need for support can result in social impairment, increased caregiver demands, exclusion from services or educational settings, and stress⁷. Challenging behaviours arise from and are maintained by a combination of risk factors⁸ - none of which are effectively addressed by increasingly punitive measures or ‘boot camps’.

Alongside this are intersections with school exclusion; schools often lack the specialist knowledge and financial resourcing required to adequately provide an inclusive education. This results in students most in need of support, interventions, and understanding being excluded from school, and so the cycle of ever-escalating behaviour continues.

These issues of challenging behaviours, school exclusion, hard to access disability supports, inadequate mental services, and culturally inappropriate social services for families and whānau occur across Aotearoa New Zealand.

What is needed is stable funding for culturally appropriate, local, services (for example, Stand Tū Māia in Northland - which this government has defunded).

What is needed is access to local health services and properly funded regional hospitals (which this government has defunded).

What is needed is adequate funding for education and disability - again, the very services this government has slashed in order to provide tax cuts and rebates to the already wealthy.

1. Lang, M., & Sarimski, K. (2018). The Behavior Problems Inventory Short Form: Utility for Children and Adolescents with Visual Impairments. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 112(6), 765–770. https://doi.org/10.1177/0145482X1811200611

2. Chiracu, Alina & Buică-Belciu, Cristian. (2023). Well-being in adolescents with and without visual impairments. Review of Psychopedagogy. 12. 42-53. 10.56663/rop.v12i1.57.

3. Ibid

4. Graham, R., & Masters-Awatere, B. (2020). Experiences of Māori of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public health system: a systematic review of two decades of published qualitative research. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 44(3), 193–200. https://doi.org/10.1111/1753-6405.12971

5. Ministry of Justice. (2019). Māori Health Disability Statistical Report. Wai 2575, #B24. Wellington, NZ. Retrieved from https://www.health.govt.nz/maori-health/wai-2575-health-services-and-outcomes-inquiry#stagetwo

6. Tevis C, Matson JL. Challenging behaviour in children with developmental disabilities: an overview of behavioural assessment and treatment methods. BJPsych Advances. 2022;28(6):401-409. doi:10.1192/bja.2022.59

7. Ibid

8. Lambie, I. (2020). What were they thinking? A discussion paper on brain and behaviour in relation to the justice system in New Zealand. www.pmcsa.ac.nz.